No, global warming did NOT cause the storms, says one of the Met Office’s most senior experts

One of the Met Office’s most senior experts yesterday made a dramatic intervention in the climate change debate by insisting there is no link between the storms that have battered Britain and global warming.

Mat Collins, a Professor in climate systems at Exeter University, said the storms have been driven by the jet stream – the high-speed current of air that girdles the globe – which has been ‘stuck’ further south than usual.

Professor Collins told The Mail on Sunday: ‘There is no evidence that global warming can cause the jet stream to get stuck in the way it has this winter. If this is due to climate change, it is outside our knowledge.’

His statement carries particular significance because he is an internationally acknowledged expert on climate computer models and forecasts, and his university post is jointly funded by the Met Office.

Prof Collins is also a senior adviser – a ‘co-ordinating lead author’ – for the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). His statement appears to contradict Met Office chief scientist Dame Julia Slingo.

Last weekend, she said ‘all the evidence suggests that climate change has a role to play’ in the storms.

Prof Collins made clear that he believes it is likely global warming could lead to higher rainfall totals, because a warmer atmosphere can hold more water. But he said this has nothing to do with the storm conveyor belt.

He said that when the IPCC was compiling its Fifth Assessment Report on climate change last year, it discussed whether warming might affect the jet stream. But, he went on, ‘there was very low confidence that climate change has any effect on the jet stream getting stuck’. In the end, the possibility was not even mentioned in the report.

For a great deal more factual material on Climate Change & Global Warming may I commend Anthony Watts’ specialist site CLICK HERE

Also I believe that the many articles on the subject and also detailed articles on the current flooding one would have to go a long way to better the various articles on Dr. Richard North’s web site CLICK HERE

Let us never forget the desperate efforts made by the warmists to show that the flooding of the Somerset Levels & the Thames as being due to their unsubstantiated and unproven theories of anthropogenic Global Warming, which is clearly bunkum as in Neolithic time the Somerset Levels extensively flooded without the help of mankind!

It is claimed that the flooding is the worst for 250 years and so it may well be as the rain is at its worst for 250 years – this is of course one of the joys or disadvantages of living on a volatile planet with a constantly changing climate influenced by plate tectonics, volcanic action and the radiation output of our nearest star which constantly is changing.

Let us not forget that for millenia it rained constantly and then emerged Pangea which drifted into Gondwanna and we seem able to trace some 29 periods of massive global warming that ended the various ice ages – thye arrogance of the warmists and the politicians that they believe that mankind can make a significant difference is staggering and even if there was a grain of truth in their theories SO WHAT the amount of difference mankind makes would be both miniscule and self correctimng as such harm we do will harm mankind diminishing our success even perhaps eradicating us from the infinite equation just as we each shall be in our turn.

It is arrogant to believe that mankind is of any consequential value to the universe and if you doubt that then may I suggest you seek out Carl Sagan’s ‘Small Blue Dot’ on You Tube and get over yourself!

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